It's official. Dismissed as a silly rumour by many, Nokia and Micorsoft have just announced a very comprehensive partnership in which Windows Phone 7 will become Nokia's prime smartphone platform. It goes a lot deeper than that, though. Update:Qt will not be available for Windows Phone 7. Qt will remain the development platform for MeeGo and Symbian. Update II: During its Capital Market Day event, Elop confirmed Nokia will not make a comprehensive MeeGo product line. It will be a platform to learn from, but it won't become a competitive platform. Update III: Android was not an option because it would be difficult to differentiate there. Update IV: There will be 'substantial reductions in employment' in Finland and around the world. Also, before I forget, thanks Engadget for the live-blogging where I get this stuff from!

Nokia will get the much wanted access to US markets through the power of Microsoft and Microsoft will get the market share & design power it needed.

When I recent re-read Steve Ballmer's quote during iPhone launch "that they (MS) would like to be the smartphone platform for 60-70% of the phones as against being a niche player with 1-2% marketshare", I was thinking that the only way Windows Phone can counter the onslaught of iPhone & Android will be through a strategic partnership with Nokia.

However, I think Elop negotiated a raw deal for Nokia. I think he should have asked for some kind of exclusivity deal (not for platform, but customization) so that they would have a differentiated offering from Samsung or HTC. However, may be he might have negotiated on the price of licensing. I think MS would have given free licenses for 2-3 years for this deal (atleast that way Nokia would have strong positive news from this deal).

I think Meego will be positioned for Nokia's netbooks (not sure what was its name) & future tablet platform which will also do the OS some justice for all the power it offers to its users.